Thought I Quit Smoking!!

Day 2332

Got a little snow in the area Saturday. Maybe a whole 4 – 6 inches. Not a lot bu local standards, but it did inspire me to try a new activity. Fortunately for you, I only have pictures of the inanimate objects involved in these exploits and none of me.

The short version of the story? Saturday night while soaking in the hot tub I had the brilliant idea of making a snow angel in the back yard. In that virgin 4 – 6 inches of snow.

Here’s a random young gal displaying the correct technique:

The Technique

When you’re done, you should have something that looks like this:

The Result

Except, picture me making that angel wearing nothing more than a conservative pair of swim trunks. The invisible force field you get in the hot tub lasted until my second sweep of my arms & legs. Then I gave it one more sweep and jumped out of the snow and bolted for the tub. Think there was still some snow clinging to me in places. I dared Cindy to do it too but she bailed right at the last minute, afraid she’d have trouble getting back up out of the snow. I would have helped her, after capturing the whole sordid mess on video, of course.

I was going to get a picture of my own snow angel, but the local deer are apparently also art critics. The snobs walked right through my angel! Plus, we’ve had a little more snow and the contrast has been reduced significantly. And NO, I won’t be repeating it anytime soon.

The scarier part of the evening came just after the half-nekkid angel sprints. The dryer was occupied doing laundry, so to get our towels dry for the next trip to the tub, I hung them in front of the (glassed in) fireplace. Who knew the glass was hot enough to start a towel smoldering? Who knew that when you pulled that towel away from the fireplace it would burst into flames? Who knew that the *&%#$ smoke detector that goes off every time you sauté a few onions in butter wouldn’t go off when the family room was chock full of thick blue smoke?

Once I had the towel in my hands I rolled it up to smother the part that went flambé. Then I got it out onto the back porch and surveyed the damage. Poor towel was totaled. It looked kinda like this:

Towel Flambe!

On a plus note, Zach & I bottled 5 gallons of Irish Stout (Think Guinness Extra Stout) Sunday. Now it needs to sit for 3 weeks so it can carbonate and mellow a bit. January 30 we’ll be busting it out for a little test run.

Zach, filling the bottling bucket.

Lovely dark beer

That whitish stuff on the bottom of the carboy is mostly yeast & hops. There’s also a wide band of yeast around the top that was deposited there during the height of carbonation. Surprisingly, it was fairly easy to clean. I just don’t know what the local water treatment facility is going to do with that load of yeast. Does it even matter to them?

Next up is a batch of Octoberfest Lager. I also got a book of beer clones – 150 of North Americans favorite craft beers. One of them is Eric’s fave – I’ll have to see if he’d like a batch brewed up for his wedding. Some of them take 6 – 8 months to fully age, so I may have to start early. Nothing like a little anticipation!

Eww on the towel and glad you caught it before something else caught fire. So the image of a half naked grown adult male making snow angels is making me laugh. Thanks for the great visual. Lastly, MMMMMM BEER!

The smell of the smoldering and the thick blue haze made it hard to miss. But it certainly could have turned out worse.

It snowed last night & today, completely burying my angel. I’d do another one, but it turns out the spousal unit actually got a video of the one I did Saturday. It MIGHT get to You Tube. Maybe. With much editing.